2 Recent Stabbing Victims Are UT-Austin Students: Police

AUSTIN, TX — Two of the victims in last week's downtown stabbing attack are University of Texas at Austin students, officials confirmed on Sunday.

UT Austin Police Chief David Carter confirmed on Twitter the student status of two of the five victims knifed in downtown Austin on Thursday. He took the time to urge students to be extra cautious when visiting social spots beyond the campus.

"I was alerted by a professor of a second student who was attacked by recent knife assailant on 6th Street," Carter wrote on Twitter. "We notified APD and have connected student to SES for follow on care. Never hesitate to tell someone if u are assaulted. Police will always keep your identity confidential."

Then, the advice to students: "it is imperative that you recognize that entertainment areas off campus can be dangerous! If u go out please stay in groups, have at least 1 sober friend, and call 9-1-1 ASAP if you see suspicious activity!"

Austin police last week arrested a woman they described as transient following a knifing attac that took place within a 30-minute time frame along the 600 block of Neches Street, the 500 block of East 6th Street and at the intersection of East 6th and River streets just before 11:30 p.m. on Thursday. Raecala Morris, 33, was said to have come up behind her victims before stabbing them about the head and body before fleeing.

Although the victims required medical attention for their wounds, no fatalities resulted from the stabbing spree. Medics applied medical treatment for deep lacerations and cuts among the victims — three of which were officially confirmed cases and two more reported by police as seen on surveillance camera video.

Gov. Greg Abbott seized on the incident in politicizing the issue of homelessness — a scourge he has accused the Austin City Council of increasing as a result of more loosened rules dictating behavior of those living on the streets. The governor has decried a recent council move over the summer that relaxed rules related to the behavior of homeless people enacted toward decriminalizing homelessness — including allowing transients to sit or lie on sidewalks so long as they create no obstruction for pedestrians and allowing camping in certain parts of the city where allowable.

The latter allowance was reined in after an abundance of tents starting popping up in various key parts of the city — a development that Mayor Steve Adler conceded had not been foreseen ahead of the relaxed rule was enacted. In response to the loosened rules, Abbott dispatched state crews to rid homeless encampments under highway overpasses, and set aside land away from the downtown sector as temporary makeshift encampment for those experiencing homelessness.

Abbott was quick to condemn another stabbing attack three weeks ago that left a manager at a South Austin eatery dead and another worker injured. That attack also was perpetrated by a man labeled as homeless, prompting the governor to suggest such incidents are somehow rooted in the lax rules passed by council members last summer.

The attack against the two Freebirds World Burrito worker came on the heels of a previous confrontation with a patron at a nearby coffee shop. The man accused in that attack later jumped to his death after taking to the roof of the restaurant, and was categorized by police as having been homeless — a status Abbott confidently predicted would be the case hours before the official police confirmation.

Related stories:

• 5 Stabbed In Downtown Austin Knifing Attack
• Austin Stabbing Leaves 1 Dead, 3 Injured

However, Patch independently confirmed the man does not register as having availed himself of resources catering to the homeless on the Homeless Management Information System — a local information technology system used to collect client-level data and data on the provision of housing and services to homeless individuals and families and persons at risk of homelessness. On the heels of that attack, police said the man accused of the violence — a recent transplant to Austin — was homeless, but offered no details as to how they reached that conclusion.

Given the lack of activity on the man's part as reflected on the Homeless Management Information System database, a source who works with the homeless population in Austin theorized the accused was, at most, a so-called "diversion case" — defined as a person with whom those helping transient populations would seek to help enter a shelter or reconnect with friends or family.

In response to recent violence largely centered in the downtown entertainment sectors, Abbott on Jan. 8 dispatched additional Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to areas around downtown and UT-Austin as added safeguard.

While doing so, Abbott decried the city's homeless policies he views as having contributed to the bloodshed: "How many people will be killed and injured before Austin reforms its homeless policies?" Abbott wrote in a tweet as he sent over the additional troopers, accompanying his tweet with a photo taken by the law enforcement agency showing the additional patrols.